


Shine On Harvest Moon

by daredevilmoon



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-07-21
Updated: 2014-07-31
Packaged: 2018-02-09 19:27:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,837
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1995048
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daredevilmoon/pseuds/daredevilmoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Time erodes all unlucky love.</p><p>  <i>The days progressed on ripples of rumour and horror, human turmoil providing a plethora of aspects upon which all people could wax to their own private tune. He’d heard more often than at any time in his life the word “unthinkable”, which struck him as rather absurd; it was nothing but thinkable as the press and people both seemed in conspiracy to think of nothing else.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The changing of the seasons was heralded by the crisp winds sweeping up from the Channel to coat the grounds in an icy dew. Such winds seemed to swirl all around, emptying themselves of processions of dull guests who churned the days into Christmas with a tedium that grew excessively over Philip’s nerves. He felt slightly at odds with the holiday and the pleasantries, but play-acted his way into the good graces of all as he had always done.

If nothing else, both the bustle and the focus on playing his part proved a distraction from himself, though the absent itching of boredom didn’t seem likely to cease. He could live with that for a few months of the year provided he was granted his own sort of pleasures at other times; that was, after all, the game.

In these months, Philip felt as though he were constantly speaking, if only to stave off the words of plain, dull women who boasted fortunes. If he was to lose at this battle, which he begrudgingly knew that he would, he would do it with a panache befitting his dignity. At the end of each engagement, at the end of each day, he found himself mostly unable to recount any of the discussion - on occasion, even the topics would elude him when he looked back at the already blurred day.

It seemed only right in its own cruel way that Philip’s respite was only to be found once the moon had risen, pale as a lover’s skin. Though the sky was prickled with stars, Selene seemed a great exhalation against the shallow breaths of light and he would often open the curtains to the dark to invite her in. By a twining of her and the candlelight, he was granted his own exhalation, found in the curving pen strokes of a lover’s words.

***

Through December, the arrival of new words had been growing less frequent, not so much with the cooling of a summer heat as with distraction and necessity. The idea of receiving letters while he was away discomfited Philip; he was rather afraid they would linger and risk the invitation of intrigue. To his relief, no umbrage was to be found at the request, Thomas being busy with his own footman’s flitting.

Each letter seemed shorter than the last as the days before Christmas diminished, now each one stippled through with lamentation atop the amusing gossip. The gossip, indeed, was rife, though Philip enjoyed taking it in from a more intimate perspective than what was to be gleaned from a sallow look over a dinner; it was almost unnerving, the detail Thomas could provide on every aspect of the facts he imparted.

Philip wrote responses as he received these letters, to be tied together when he had more letters to send out, pleased enough that, though the letters were less personal, he seemed to have gained his own very particular society column.

All the same, these hurried correspondences were not the sort he took to bed. It seemed, retrospectively, that his schooldays had perfectly prepared him for this sort of life made up of ghosted touches. The letters could stay where they were, quite safe, as he pored yet again over their phrases, which were free to whorl in a comfortable warmth about him as he succumbed to sleep.

***

There was a brief lull of silence surrounding Christmas itself, when, directly after Boxing Day, there seemed a return to form: Thomas’s words, having been written on Christmas he informed, detailed the myriad of ways of ways he wished Philip to keep him warm. It was a late-received gift:  the longest letter he had received yet and undoubtedly the most explicitly damning. He flushed at reading it, response pooling low in him as he wrote a reply in the same ilk. It emerged a frantic sort of unwinding of the unbearability of the preceding weeks; he wrote and wanted as he hadn’t. He sealed it in an envelope before he had the chance to re-read it, wanting it to have the giving-over effect that only something borne of desire could elicit. To do otherwise seemed as worthwhile as insisting in beginning a love affair again, having deemed the initial forays unreserved.

He read the letter again, absently brushing his fingers over the ink as if to better take in the meanings; indeed, an image provided dropped into vision before it was to be washed away by the next, visceral and nearly staccato in immediacy.

His memories of Thomas, in this physical way, seemed resigned to the feeling provoked rather than a picture of their time together. Descriptions would arise; that is how he thought of Thomas’s looks, only just glancing portraits appearing in his mind. He couldn’t conjure motion in his thoughts, not properly, so the things detailed were accompanied by deeply-missed contact: hands tracing bodies, pure heat overwhelming, shared breath of a gasped kiss. Then, too, the letter itself was leant a more direct eroticism at the thought of Thomas having written it. Philip wondered if he had brought himself off as he wrote, imagined his fingers holding the pen, scratching his lust at the page even as his release dripped over the nib. Mixed with the ink. He shivered at the baseness of it, the utter animal desire twining as it did so neatly with man’s imagination. He could, of course, want more than words written - but he was contented that this was a relatively fair lot. He had his love, his lust, neatly tucked away, but, even so, they were his even more earnestly than his memories.

With that, it was a worrying fact that none of his letters had a particularly safe home when he was in Crowborough; he left them in his books that he would carry along with him back to London, to put them in a more private spot. He took it for granted that there was not a going-over of his room taking place when he left, but the idea of anything being found out, so clearly spelled, made him rather nervous. Even then, despite himself, he found his books all the better for their recent filth; each bit of history filled with his own, his life coalescing within the years- or decades- or centuries-old wisdom and imparting pieces of a yet-young life pleasurably spent.

With his youth, there was not quite the necessity to put on an altogether too decent facade, particularly not if it was meant to cover his own eyes. Every man deserved the sowing of wild oats and while his may have been apparently wilder than the first to utter that phrase had no doubt intended, they were indeed his and he intended full well to sow them to the best of his ability before any institution placed their foundations over that most favoured field. So he wrote as always, the earliest months of 1912 rolling by more or less quietly beneath the stream of letters.

***

Though the anticipation of the Season grew with the progression of time, Thomas did seem more and more a distant figure. It seemed a strange thing that now his carefully revered incubus should be the one penning him letters about having been made a valet. Philip didn’t begrudge him the news, but it seemed to impart an even further distance between them. He held so comparatively few memories against the stretch of time without Thomas. It had been the most beautiful interlude, something Bacchanalian in its passions, but Philip increasingly wondered whether it was to only be that: a few summer weeks which had seemed to cut deeper than they had.

He had been nearly certain that Thomas had buried something of himself within him, but the increasing passage of time seemed to make that driven-in desire work itself to the surface; each movement within his separate life driving the thing out, leaving it farther behind his realisation as the days turned to weeks.

Even with that gnawing idea, he did enjoy the letters. They were amusing, as good company as any of Philip’s other friends by way of words alone. Then, of course, any laced with eroticism belonged  only to Thomas’s pen. These were better company than any during dull nights stretching through his home or any other sleepy manor boasting relations. He longed for touch, for desire; he tried to imagine Thomas’s voice wrapping itself around the words, but couldn’t quite grasp it. Still, it seemed quite enough that someone so many miles away should want him so badly as to lose propriety, barter risk in order to tell him. There was, of itself, a lust borne of that, though his fantasies in the light of day expanded with his isolation beyond those particular to his Jokanaan.

The realisation was unpleasant, but bared. It was the sort of thing to overcome; the thaw of the first bursts of spring was sure to set them alight once more. They would drift to London as the Season blossomed the city into vibrancy, the reignition of their old flame far preferable to to finding anything else. The trouble and most of the danger of properly acquainting oneself with one other or gaining the soon-forgotten acquaintance of many were significantly lessened with his having a lover ready to regain him.

Then, too, the idea did possess a sense of romance which wasn’t lost on him - a necessary separation only ending in lovers regained was the sort of thing about which poets wrote from antiquity. There was a grandiosity in it not often extended to men such as they; that idea thrilled him, in his own innocuously rebellious way.

He wondered, on occasion, whether he may have liked that idea more than the actual fact of their being reunited; then, the end result would be quite the same. He knew that they would fall back into step with one another - perhaps closer still for the ink between them, intimate as blood or semen had ever been, shared over the course of many months. He was near certain; he still liked Thomas, still enjoyed what of him he was allowed in the prose allotted to them. Yet the fact remained that he no longer loved him.  He was sure he’d fall back into that, too, once Thomas was in his arms.

For he no longer had the impression of his voice, his scent, the warmth of his of lips even in memory; even the memory was fading into a pleasure indistinguishable from half-hearted lovers he’d had at Oxford. Though Thomas’s words remained lurid, the separation had grown as such that they threatened to succumb to the limitations of any known writer; they no longer seemed quite Philip’s own.

In nervous sorts of fits of passion, Philip wrote to Thomas as sweetly as ever. Perhaps sweeter, as though reminding himself of what it was that he wished to have rather than what he felt. The summer was their season, the heat and the indolence begat so perfectly a hazy, honest love; he didn’t doubt for a moment that the heat would light a flame beneath their love once more.


	2. Chapter 2

As early as propriety would allow in fleeing the confines of country life was Philip's wont to entering the Season; were it up to him, he should have lived in London the year round. He knew of people who did, respectable people, but his title rather firmly planted him in Crowborough for at least the length of winter, the only pleasant aspect of which was that it wasn’t quite as cold, which, all told, was not sufficient to endear the time to him.

The society parties were yet scarce in the earliest of April’s days, which suited Philip perfectly well, leaving him as it did with an entirely enjoyable swathe of free time to spend with his various London companions. It was a diverting relaxation, company wherein no one wanted to marry him or thrust the eligible in his direction; his days and nights became a happy swirl of drink, conversation, and laughter.

Still, he found that his desire for Thomas had begun to resurface; the air in his flat seemed still perfumed with their days, intoxicating as ever once the memories were laid bare through each of his days. It was an absurd romanticism, yet he couldn’t help but remember the flush of Thomas’s skin against his bed, the warmth of his body so perfectly fit against Philip’s own. He wondered how he should have survived intervening months if he had stayed put, doubting that he could have borne it. He may well have asked Thomas to leave his employ and return - perhaps, even, to stay, for the emptiness of the place was suddenly startling.

Everything seemed to hold some lingered trace; while had thought he had lost the precision of memory one needed to love a spectre, the spectre had grown corporeal and he could see each of its shades more clearly. Despite knowing better, some distant thought lamented the lack of a knock during the hours his man had free.

He wasn’t at all sure of when the Crawleys were meant to be arriving, but he anticipated that it would be sooner rather than later. While Mary was more or less tied to her cousin, the other presented daughter was still quite adrift; if he had gleaned anything of her, they ought to have arrived very early indeed. Yet the days passed without word as to the arrival, leaving Philip to feel the absence more keenly than he would have with the pinhead of anticipation pricking light into his worries.

Then, yet still before any information had reached him, the whole of London found itself awash in the chill bath of Atlantic waters.

He knew no one terribly well who had been aboard, but it seemed as though every person in society had lost some piece of themselves, however small. The very evening the papers had arrived he found himself a recipient of a letter from his mother, detailing the acquaintances she’d known who had undoubtedly perished. _Too, too beastly an affair,_ she wrote; he could nearly hear her affected little “tsk”s scattered about as she dictated the letter to her ladies’ maid. _Thank heavens I’ve long avoided the sea._

Heaven, Philip thought unkindly, was not what he would be thanking for that state of affairs - this before feeling rather guilty and penning an altogether acceptable response.

The days progressed on ripples of rumour and horror, human turmoil providing a plethora of aspects upon which all people could wax to their own private tune. He’d heard more often than at any time in his life the word “unthinkable”, which struck him as rather absurd; it was nothing but thinkable as the press and people both seemed in conspiracy to think of nothing else.

The bow was breaking, too, within Thomas’s newest letter, leaving some unhappy flotsam to scrape at him as it passed by on currents of ink. The words were bitter but there was little solace in the act other than the shared sentiment at the fact that the Abbey was in mourning for the loss of its heirs; those left were caught and kept by their pall within those walls. Without Philip’s having intended it, it seemed as though the summer spectre had burst into mist, evaporated. Any feelings to a lack of their ties now seemed but hushed voices in comparison to the simple finality of this last death knell.

He wrote back immediately, honest in his lamentation over the situation than the deaths, but it was the shortest of his letters; he didn’t know that he had it within himself just then to communicate much more without proving damning. He didn’t want to damn them, didn’t want to spoil the past even if they bore no future, but he found himself at a rare loss for words. They were simply lovers consigned to history, for Philip couldn't go on waiting forever for a man he’d known over the course of several weeks a year before; it had been madness to have kept it on for so long, but he had wanted it. He had wanted to fall into an old lover’s arms, to indulge in the comfort of repetition, seemingly an ever-elusive thing; it had been so very near to his grasp. It had, indeed, rested gingerly at his fingertips, yet it was at last cracked apart by clumsier hands than his own, leaving him with little wounds it did not seem worth the effort required to heal.

***

The Season, once it had begun properly, was shaping up to be a relatively slow one, the likes of which Philip hadn’t seen. So many of his sort of people were mourning, either proper or in spirit, that the ballrooms seemed practically emptied, regardless of whatever press of people he may have found within. Had this allowed more freedom of movement, he should have been grateful, yet the perfunctory dos were held and he felt increasingly as though each of them was fancy dress.

Thomas’s letters began to skirt a sort of desperation for words of affection or amusement, comfort or even just contact, his diversions from rote cut to nearly nothing. Philip wrote back and provided whatever it was that was asked for, whatever words seemed needed - this as the wreckage began to rust in his stomach. He simply didn’t know how to end it, so he kept it going.

So it went as he forgot of it among friends, as he charmed women, as he fell in for brief couplings with respectable fellows who never approached Thomas in beauty. So it went as he wished they had been able to maintain it, as he wished he could end it.

****

As the days had begun to seem endless, the sun poised as though to burn the city to the ground once more, Philip found himself granted a sort of reprieve by way of a rather unexpected telegram. It hosted only several short words, vague enough that he had to read it twice to be entirely sure what was being gotten at, though he found them honestly as clear as day from the first: Lady Mary Crawley was very possibly an heiress.

It seemed rather too lucky to be the case, in all honesty; both the sudden call to Downton and prospect of Lady Mary as a bride. If nothing else, he thought her amusing and such seemed increasingly like the most relief he’d be granted in a marriage. Within the day, he wrote her a letter, dripping with sympathy and charm in mixing measure, inquiring after a visit once the Season had come to an end.

While he received the ‘official’ response, naturally one of pleased invitation, it was two weeks before he found himself with any word from Thomas. Philip supposed he knew why, understood the the precaution, but, he found himself disappointed for the gap that left in his days. He felt absurd for it; he wanted to end the affair, true, but he couldn’t help the interruption dragging at his spirits.

He wasn’t entirely sure what to do at that fact; he had no desire to stay atop tenterhooks any longer, nor leave Thomas waiting on them, but neither did he want a cessation of companionship altogether. He liked this strange sort of world he imagined the could inhabit of friendship, wherein their past drew them together, but each knew the score more clearly.

Philip knew, though neither said, that Thomas had visions different than his own, by virtue of something nearly borne of necessity if nothing deeper. The letters spoke increasingly of the boredom, there being no guests on whom to attend. Slowly the lover’s letters coalesced with those of a friend’s and Philip’s heart gave an uneasy little throb at each braid. He liked these new letters, enjoyed their warmer shades, but he didn’t feel the same ties to them that he feared Thomas was increasingly feeling for his being trapped.

Thomas had begun to joke about needing to return to practise in undressing men and, though Philip knew what he was asking, he had responded only upon their face-value. He couldn’t take Thomas on - had never wanted to take Thomas on. He had liked them as they were; for all their separation there hadn’t seem so strict a line drawn between them when they were only lovers. Bringing on a lover as valet teetered dangerously close to trade, a valet too close to a well-dressed renter. That had never been to his taste, seeming more the realm of old men; he found the idea rather insulting that he should be asked to exchange banknotes for a sheath of feigned desire. In anonymity of this Season’s affairs, the men may have suspected something of his position, but they never asked - nor did he ever pay.

It seemed especially repugnant taking into mind that he and Thomas had not begun that way. Thomas bore a quiet arrogance than was so much more beautiful than they boys who boasted nothing but a pretty face. There was a sense of self-possession about him that was wonderfully attractive, and it made Philip disinclined from wanting to be served by him.

He wished - but, ah, there the thought stopped.

He wished devoid of mind, rather with a visceral tugging he could neither shake nor attend. It grew worse as he received Thomas’s first letter after the telegram, one in which he was very pleased for having arranged the circumstances of their meeting. Philip frowned at the guilt blossoming in his stomach. 

He wished - and found he only could only wish for an ending that didn’t go like a Prince Rupert’s drop.

Were it feasible, he would have been contented taking the coward’s way out and simply neglecting to write, but doing so would leave his letters to fate. Sharing those bursts of madness within the safe confines of love or desire was one thing, but those dissolved would give over to a terrible risk. Thomas was given to passions and while it suited perfectly a love affair, Philip feared that it, too, would suit rather too perfectly to an ending.

Briefly, he gave over to lament that he hadn’t had the foresight to have picked up with someone of more steadier temperament, but found the exercise futile. Naturally, if Thomas had been of steadier temperament, Philip wouldn’t have picked up with him for more than the length of that first rapturous evening.

As the Season began to fade, as the money swirled from London to dot the scape once more, Philip was left more to himself, given over to thought which swirled atop pages printed with some lover plucked from history in mind. He felt increasingly certain about the fact that, for all his intended care and pleasure, the convolution it all was entirely of his own doing. He had perfectly set the trap into which he had fallen.


End file.
